How to go about setting up a calcium reactor?

[ZoaFan08]

Food always works..... Its amazing what people can get us guys to do for food.

I agree, I helped move a friend from CA to MA just because he said "i'll buy you dinner everynight" :tongue:

 

[AZDesertRat]

If you are using a pH controller its pretty hard to nuke a tank, it will shut the CO2 off when it gets low in the reactor.
The bubble count and drip rate are dependent on the calcium demand in your system, if you are heavily stocked with SPS and like me are lazy about water changes or 2 part additions the start about where you stated. If you don't have much calcium demand in your system start on the light side and monitor the calcium demand making slight changes to either the bubble count or drops but only one at a time in a 24 hour period. By changing only one or the other you can monitor what is working and what isn't, if you change both or make too many changes in a 24 hr period you have no idea what helped and what hurt. It takes a few weeks and quite a bit of calcium, alkalinity and pH testing to get it dialed in perfect but from then on its hands of at its best!

 

[ZoaFan08]

My problem is not really calcium it was Alk, my Alk dropped but my calcium stayed around 400.

I do water changes every 2 weeks religiously and don't have much SPS but my Alk swings are affecting some of my corals.

 

[Murfman]

You are controlling the pH inside the reactor chamber, not your tank pH. You turn the CO2 off so it does not melt your calcium media and turn it to mush. Thats why the probe is stuck in the reactor effluent and not the display or sump. I like my probe outside the reactor so I can occasionally dip it in the sump to monitor tank pH too.

Keep in mind that if you are calibrating for the effluent, you should be using 4.0 and 7.0 calibration fluid. If you are dipping it to test your tank ph, you should calibrate with 7.0 and 10.0. It will work like you are doing but might not be the most accurate.

 

[AZDesertRat]

It really makes little difference, in fact Milwaukee recommends a single point calibration of their SMS-122 controllers.